unRAID on Thecus N5550 with 6 drives

Thecus N5550 6th Drive Mod

This post is specific to owners of the Thecus N5550 but will apply to almost all of the Thecus NAS lineup as well. Anyone with Thecus NAS devices knows that the operating system “ThecusOS” has been practically abandoned. The vendor came out with “OS7” but it never fully finished and development died somewhere along the way. It also did not fully support the N5550 and many other models. Owners were left with unsupported devices.

This was fine with me for a while since I never really used the management interface except when configuring or troubleshooting issues. However after a couple years now the interface is very outdated and I was looking for something more modern.

I did upgrade one of my N5550’s to “ThecusOS7”, a beta version. It was able to install and it appeared to be functional however I was unable to create a RAID volume. Which means I could not use it for much of anything. Not to mention it was clunky and the older UI actually seemed to be more functional. It was clear that OS7 was just trying to mimic Synology’s DSM, but lacked all the polish. My attempts to downgrade were unsuccessful and I had pretty much bricked the NAS.

So now what? I have three N5550’s and don’t want the hardware to go to waste.

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Windows Server 2019 – Now available in preview

On March 20th, 2018 the Microsoft Windows Server Team announced that Windows Server 2019 was now available in preview. This is the one of the first times we’ve heard about the new server operating system and it has certainly been met with mixed reactions. It is expected for release sometime in the second half of 2018.

Today is a big day for Windows Server! On behalf of the entire Windows Server team, I am delighted to announce Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in the second half of calendar year 2018. Starting now, you can access the preview build through our Insiders program. -Erin Chapple, Director of Program Management, Windows Server

This new edition of Windows Server seems to have come at at time where most enterprises are just now starting to deploy Windows Server 2016. This is primarily due to Microsoft’s updated release schedule channels.

Microsoft has indicated that Windows Server 2019 release will be part of the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), which also includes Windows Server 2016. Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) formerly called the “Long-Term Servicing Branch” is Microsoft’s release model where a new major version of Windows Server is released every 2-3 years. Users are entitled to 5 years of mainstream support and 5 years of extended support. This channel is appropriate for systems that require a longer servicing option and functional stability. Continue reading…